


Curiosity and the cat

by Marie_L



Category: Almost Human
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Massage, Philosophical musings and smut, Robot Sex, Sex Robots, because nothing says Valentine's Day like android prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:11:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1231108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/pseuds/Marie_L
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valerie visits a bot brothel. For anthropological research, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity and the cat

Valerie Stahl glanced around judiciously before entering the building. At least seven cameras visible, meaning she'd never live it down if anyone at the precinct stumbled upon the footage. She sighed and went through the doors of the brothel anyway.

They didn't call it a "brothel" of course. This was a high-end establishment, so no cutesy faux-retro names like "Madame Vivian's Virtual Vixens." This particular bot brothel went by the name Jinsei, "Life" in Japanese, and had a rather popular pickup bar aimed at divorced or distressed forty-somethings on the ground level. Valerie, coming in on her day off at one in the afternoon, ignored the few sad patrons nursing drinks on their lunch hour and went straight through to the upper "spa" level. She had an appointment to keep.

Once inside away from prying public cameras, Valerie wasn't jittery or leery about her intended interview with the bot, despite posing as a client. It was rather like going undercover, an aspect of being a detective she didn't get to do often -- and wasn't convinced she was particularly good at, either -- but was nevertheless the most fun part of her job. Plus she had done this before, as a grad student some seven years prior. For one of her social anthropology seminars she had done an extensive paper on the emergence of synthetic prostitutes, complete with interviews with the bot controllers, competing human escorts being put out of business, and of course, the androids themselves. The bangbot business occupied a legal gray area then, neither forbidden nor explicitly regulated, except for the occasional raid by the health department convinced that the sullied doings must pose some sort of public risk. The machines fell under the category of a very large sex toy, and even in an age of massive government surveillance, they would have to pry the vibrators out of Vancouverites' cold dead hands.

The bangbots themselves had been different then. They ranged from crude autonoma with garishly made-up faces to the sophisticated hydraulic-enabled bodies that the military and police used. All of them had terrible personal user interfaces, though. Valerie had reams of hilarious circular interviews somewhere on her phone trying to pry anything self-reflective out of the androids, and their ability to analyze the emotions and motivations of their human customers was surprisingly lacking as well. It was advances in this latter category that brought Val to Jinsei today.

She absorbed the atmosphere of the lobby with a sweeping glance. Fresh flowers everywhere, apparently real. Soothing vaguely Asian music piped to every room. Beautiful, tasteful, minimalist decor. Blissed-out customers in white fluffy bathrobes lounging around with hot cups of herbal tea and reading trashy newsfilms. It _was_ a spa. One where you could have a cleansing avocado-lavender exfoliating steam wrap, then have guilt-free sex with your attendant. Kind of an ingenious marketing bundle, she had to admit. On impulse Val decided to add a massage to her appointment today, to test out the bot's sensitivity and physical abilities in a way that was not overtly sexual. Plus her neck hurt from the crappy non-ergonomic chairs the Bureau required her to use all day. One would think if they could afford MX partners for everyone, they could afford decent morphing seats that even short people found comfortable, but no.

Valerie was given her robe and shown to her private suite. Like everything else in the establishment, it was tasteful and expensive-looking. There was a beautifully tiled Turkish-Japanese soak bath with waterfall functions, and a wall-sized vid screen that gave one the realistic impression of being on a Maui shoreline, complete with what felt like real sunlight streaming into the room. There was also a plush recliner with a deeply polished wood base, with room enough for two. A little examination of the chair revealed it could be deftly reconfigured for any number of spa treatments, including a face pillow for her massage later. Val made herself some fresh pineapple tea, stripped and settled into the bath for a little pre-interview relaxation and musing.

The fact that the bangbot situation had changed radically was brought to her attention with the human skin case, of course. She didn't have a large role in that one, but still had seen one of the newest line of androids with the DRN chips, and had been privately impressed with how far the technology had evolved in seven years. The bot showed a clear capacity for empathy for both humans and its fellow synthetics, in addition to the ability to respond to the subtle emotional states of the humans around her. Although she didn't seem to have full sentience like Dorian, skinbot makers were getting close, with all the tricky ethical dilemmas that implied.

Dorian, too, revived her interest in bangbot technologies. Not that he acted like a prostitute in any manner, especially with the Kennex-fueled snark personality he had going on. She actually wasn't even sure he had any sexual capabilities programmed in, although with the design edict to be "as human as possible" it seemed likely. No, it was what was in his head that was exceptional. Valerie had been hired just as the mass decommissioning was commencing and thus missed the heyday of the great DRN experiment. But Dorian did seem to have that extra spark of Turing-tested intelligence. His ability to read the humans around him was uncanny, even if his response to those emotions was sometimes off. (Which of them weren't off sometimes?) She envied John sometimes, that he got to have the one android partner a person could have a real human friendship with. The ability to read people, if channeled towards human attractiveness and seduction, could be a powerful weapon indeed.

Valerie's spa bot came quietly into the room, and Val looked her over curiously from the tub. She had requested an android that appealed to both men and women, on the admittedly sexist theory that females were more likely to value personality and emotional responsiveness in their sexbots. Also the puffed up porn star look was getting old; surely some of the manufacturers were capable of greater subtlety by now.

The girl was short, slender but not scrawny, some perky roundness in the butt and a small C cup in the bust. She had straight multi-tonal strawberry blond hair that cut off at her shoulders, ambiguously colored hazel eyes, fair skin with a nice touch of freckles across the nose. Her makeup was naturalistically applied, lending her a healthy instead of dolled up look. She appeared to be in her early twenties. Overall she was the very archetype of a rosy-cheeked farm girl, the kind that one could either take home and mother to death, or lean over a barrel and fuck, depending on one's proclivities.

Subtlety indeed. The young woman strongly reminded Valerie of some of the teenaged chromes she was seeing about town, minus the skin cancer-linked freckles of course. _Perfection,_ as much as she loathed and ridiculed the idea. The essential sameness of the chromes, "corrected" according to the same values and same misguided notions of ideal beauty. Sometimes she wondered if, in a few generations, humanity was going to be reduced to Aristotelian forms, available only in a few carefully market-researched hues.

The android walked over to Valerie in the bath, both of them completely unselfconscious about the latter's nudity. "Hi, I'm Sarah. I'll be taking care of you today." She extended her hand for a shake and gave her a warm smile with tiny crow's feet around the eyes, which in a human would subconsciously signally authentic happiness.

Valerie took her hand and smiled back. "Pleasure to meet you, Sarah. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about yourself before the massage? All within the paid time, of course."

"Of course, ask me anything you like." She busied herself by methodically breaking down the recliner into a massage table.

"How old are you? Have you always worked here?"

"I woke up here eleven months ago. And yes, I have never left the building."

Valerie blinked at that. "Do you ever _want_ to leave the building?" The bot didn't answer immediately, although her slow folding of the table's sheets didn't waver. Val imagined if Sarah were Dorian, the blue cheek matrix would be working overtime processing what the client wanted to hear. "It's all right, I'm not looking for one correct answer. I just want to know your genuine thoughts."

"I have access to television and the internet, so I can look up anything I would like to know about the world. But sometimes, when I don't have an appointment, I do look out the windows and wonder what it would be like to meet some of the people I see walking along the street. I've been downstairs in the bar, there are very interesting people down there." Finishing her task, she sat down on the raised platform next to the edge of Valerie's bath.

"Do you like your job?"

"Why wouldn't I like it? I meet new interesting people every day. I give pleasure and happiness and receive pleasure in return. It is what I was created to do."

"You _receive_ pleasure? You feel something when you are with a client?"

"As long as that's what they want. Most of them do. I can control the intensity and timing of my pleasure, or link it to my partner's response." She tipped her head, gazing at Val's head resting on her arms outside the water. "You are very curious about me. Would you like me to ask you some questions about you?"

Valerie smiled at that, and this time _her_ crow's feet appeared. "What would you like to ask?"

"Are you a chrome?"

The smile vanished, and Val leaned back in the bath. "Yes. But that's not a good one to lead with, Sarah. Some people might be sensitive about that topic."

"Most of the chromes I have met seem proud of it. I am sorry, I have offended you."

"No, honey, it's okay. Why was that the first question you thought to ask?"

"You have very symmetrical features, so I guessed the answer might be yes. You are human, yet you were planned and created for a purpose, correct? What is your purpose?"

"Some people say the chromes were born to be society's leaders. But I personally don't believe that anyone has a purpose or destiny. I don't believe that the worth of a human can be foretold by their DNA. My parents had a purpose in mind for me, but I didn't fulfill it. Instead I seek out my own path. Do you understand?"

"No, but I will contemplate your words, Valerie."

Val smiled again. "Yes. Later, while you are looking out the window."

"If you wish. Would you like to begin the treatment now?" She held up an invitingly fluffy, prewarmed towel. Valerie stood up and let Sarah wrap her and gently pat her body dry. "Do you want a robe for the massage?"

"No, it will be easier without it. I don't have any modesty issues." At least not in front of a bot. Val wondered if her response would have been different with a human masseuse.

Sarah took her by the hand and led her to the now flat table. Her skin was warm, soft like a baby. Up close Val could tell it was artificial, for it lacked the fine hairs and subtle texture of real human skin. Just by touch, though, it felt sensuously authentic.

The android helped arrange her on the table, face down. "Is there a particular area of your body you would like me to focus on?"

"My neck and shoulders. I either hunch over datafilms or strain up at touch walls all day at work."

"Since this is your first visit, I don't have any records of your preferences. Would you like this to be sexual or nonsexual?"

There it was. Somehow the words coming out of Sarah's mouth were less creepy that it otherwise could have been. Valerie had taken it as a given that if she didn't specify intercourse when ordering the massage, then the bot would know, but apparently anything could be added on at any time.

To even her own surprise, Valerie found herself saying, "Why don't you do whatever you think I will like." A test of the synthetic's ability to perceive slight cues. At least that's what Val told herself.

Sarah started up at her head, rubbing the scalp with very little pressure as a warm-up, then pulled all of Val silky hair over to the side to expose her neck. It felt like an intimate hair brushing, with those soft fingertips running through the strands. She started the massage proper then, going deeply right for the knots without asking for feedback. Valerie assumed she was doing some sort of scan, because her instincts about which areas needed work were spot on. She employed a deep tissue technique that was painful in waves when applied, so Val thought she had gotten the message that this was to be a nonsexual treatment.

After a half hour of having her neck, shoulders and upper back pummeled by an ultra-strong robot, Val was about ready to cry uncle. Then Sarah suddenly stopped. "Rotate your shoulders a little bit for me?" Valerie obeyed, and was shocked at the sudden difference in her muscle tone. She was loose and pain free, no longer feeling like she was carrying around a bag of rocks tied to her neck.

"Wow. That feels amazing. I don't know if I want that amount of force all over my body, though."

Sarah nodded, happy that she had pleased her. "The rest of your back doesn't look so tense, so how about a gentle touch for that and your limbs?"

"I'm good with that." She flopped back down with her face in the pillow, ready for her entire body to melt under Sarah's skilled fingers.

She began the "gentle touch" at her lower back, and it was extraordinarily relaxing. Sarah had heated her hands up to some fantastic temperature, hot but not burning, and rubbed slow circles all over her back. Between that and the mellow music and the warmth in the room, Valerie felt every last ounce of tension run out of her, and drifted off. Not to sleep, but to some luscious dissociated state where there was just her body and the warmth, and no thoughts at all.

At some point though, Valerie became aware that Sarah was pushing the boundaries of her touch far beyond where a massage therapist would normally go. Most masseuses are acutely aware of how intimate their jobs are, how therapeutic touch by a virtual stranger can be awkward and filled with confusing sexual signals. So they keep careful boundaries on the erogenous zones, and careful rituals so the patient doesn't feel sexualized. Not so with Sarah. She kept up her mellow circles, not digging in deep enough to really alter the muscles but simply to stimulate the skin. On her sides she ventured closer to the breasts with each pass, finally brushing the sides of the soft curves. Closer and closer, until on the final pass she finally reached under on both sides and rolled the nipples between her fingers for a brief shock of pleasure. Then she started working on the buttocks.

Val was more awake by then, aware of what she was doing but having a hard time mustering up the energy to care. She knew she should say something before it really got out of hand, but frankly the android's services felt wonderful. To have someone touch you intimately, to play your arousal like a virtuoso on a musical instrument, to have absolutely zero expectations that anything need be done in return. No pressure or stress, merely pleasure freely given.

Sarah was rolling smaller pinching circles on Val's upper legs and butt, and again she pushed boundaries and worked up to the overt genital areas. First she rolled the butt cheeks, slowly sliding down until she barely brushed the anal region, then came back up again. Not an area Val normally liked being played with, or at least thought she didn't, but Sarah's touching was so soft and non-invasive that it simply aroused her even more. Then she began the same movements on her inner thighs, finally brushing just the outer lips of her labia without any hint of penetration. Valerie was rocking just the tiniest amount by then, ready to get on her knees and let the bot go completely at it, except for the fact that her body felt like putty. But then Sarah stopped and pulled back off the table.

"Roll over for me, please."

Moving her body brought a sudden rush to Valerie's head. She was completely alert now, alive, ready to strip the android of that medical tunic she was wearing and feel that soft skin all over her, on top of her, inside her. Sarah just pushed her back down on the table, wordlessly reading her desire. She murmured, "Just a little more on the front, okay? Trust me." Val nodded her head and closed her eyes.

Sarah started up at her deknotted shoulders. Her touch was softer than ever on the front, essentially just stroking her skin. Instead of going up to the sensitive front of her neck and face, she went down the sides of Val's body, around her breasts, on her stomach, down her legs, soft endorphin-releasing strokes all the way. She ignored the breasts and groin, although Valerie desperately wanted her to pinch them, suck them, do _something._

At long last, when the bot had reached her toes and Valerie's entire body was somehow relaxed and vibrating at the same time, Sarah traveled the long length of her body back up to between Val's legs. At the first tender insertion of a fingertip past her labia onto her clit, however, Valerie suddenly opened her eyes and pushed her away.

"No. _No._ You're not a fucking vibrator, dammit." She was shaking with lust and desire, the entire surface of her skin was screaming for more, but it somehow seemed _wrong_ to get off from a fully clothed being who was getting nothing in return. "You said you can feel pleasure, linked to another person's pleasure. Can you do that, now? Please?"

Sarah looked down at her with neither lust or desire, but delight that Val cared enough to think about her. "You only have eight minutes left in your session. I don't think we have enough time to includ..."

 _"Fuck_ that, add another hour onto my tab." She sat up and grabbed the android's face for a kiss. In for a penny, in for a lesbian pound. Sarah's kissing, like her stimulating touch, was soft and electrifying. While kissing she ran her fingertips down Val's neck, caressing and pulling the nape of her hair. The taste of the synthetic's mouth, like her smell, seemed to be non-existent, but her expert-level tactile contact continued unabated. Valerie was just about to unzip her tunic when she broke off and pulled them apart.

"Would you like to move to the bed?"

"This isn't the bed?" At that Sarah pointed at the wall with the false Hawaii view, and must have activated some silent remote control, for a low queen-sized bed rolled out near the floor. "Huh. That's handy." Valerie hopped off the massage table and helped her take off the one-piece uniform, running her hands along the synthetic's body for once. Everywhere she touched, the skin was the same delectable porcelain smooth.

They lay down on the unframed bed with Val still touching her, a pale imitation of the android's strokes from earlier. "Do you even like this?" Valerie whispered to her.

"Yes, it's very lovely." Sarah whispered back. "But most of my pleasure is a reflection of yours. So if I touch you more, it will be very pleasing for myself as well." While they were talking she resumed circling with her fingertips on Valerie's chest, pulling slightly this time and coming dangerously close to the nipples.

"But surely there must be something that you particularly enjoy. Or at least your body enjoys."

_"My_ body?" She rolled Val's nipples between her fingertips while she pondered the issue, eliciting a moan and some wriggling. "Well, there are extra receptors in my hands, face, breasts, vagina, anus, and general pudendal area. It is particularly pleasant to be touched in any of those regions."

"Oh, only those, huh? Why didn't they just make your whole body one big ero..." She cut off, whimpering, as Sarah took one of her nipples in her mouth. She alternated between hard sucks and light flicks with her tongue, until Val was practically  humping her leg with need. 

When she paused to switch breasts, Val finally pulled her up. "Okay, Little Miss Expert, I'll just do what you do." And she too bent over and began sucking on one of the android's breasts. Sarah's were smaller than hers, round and pliable with that same baby skin, with small pink aureola that begged to be nipped a little. Utterly convincing as real breasts, insofar as Valerie's experience went, mainly limited to her own. Her breathing became fast and erratic as Val worked on her, another realistic if strictly unnecessary touch.

Eventually they began kissing again, mouths and ears and necks, alternating and imitating each other. Sarah rolled the full length of her body against Valerie's, so maximum contact was achievable. Her hands roamed over the human's as well, with Val following along a few seconds behind, an extremely pleasurable feedback loop between the two of them of touch and sensation and response. Their arousal followed the same pattern, only in this it was android that was just keeping pace, moaning and moving against her partner's body, even sweating. Valerie couldn't tell if this was all an act, nor did it concern her anymore. She had to trust that the bot felt something when she said she did, that they were engaging in a mutually enjoyable activity. Who knew if there were really ghosts in the machine?

At last Sarah upped the ante, snaking her fingers down between Valerie's legs even as the two of them continued to suck on each other's necks. Val followed suit as best she could, appreciating for once the difficult task of the heterosexual male, trying to navigate the clitoris without actually being in possession of one. But when the android repositioned Val's legs and inserted a few fingers of her free hand into her -- in effect, doing three things at once -- Valerie saw the limit of her own multitasking capabilities. She rocked against the bots hands with a hard, fast rhythm, her overstimulated body on the edge of coming. Between gasps she managed to get out, "I don't think ... I can make this happen ... at the same time for both of us."

Sarah responded by kissing her back on the mouth to cut off her speaking, without faltering in her movements below. "Shhh. Let me do this for you. I'll be fine, don't worry." She scooted down a few inches, and went back to the suckling on Val's olive-toned breast, timed in sync with her strokes on the clit below. At that Valerie officially gave up trying to reciprocate on her partner, and instead twisted her fingers in the bot's pretty hair at chest level. She was unabashedly moaning now, thrusting on Sarah's hands, putting those magic fingers to the test. It didn't take long to go over at that rate, and as she came, Valerie saw that Sarah was moaning and thrashing too. For an instant an electric blue light shined behind her eyes, the only overtly synthetic sign Val had seen from her body. Then both of their breathing slowed, and her lover's eyes went back the human-looking hazel.

They lay there for a few moments, their sticky bodies intertwined in that hot and humid room. Valerie was still basking in all of that touch. She stroked Sarah's messy hair and murmured, "So. Some truth-telling?"

"Always."

"You can just orgasm whenever you want to, can't you?"

Sarah laughed, a musical sound Valerie had never heard before. "I think I might have to remain silent on that as a trade secret. Do you have any other questions for me, my curious one?"

"Oh, many. Such as: Can androids get into a bath with a human without electrocuting anybody?"

"Time will tell." This time they both laughed.

 

 

 


End file.
